Tag: Growth

Tonight, I hit a wall. I’ve been staring at the open computer screen for two hours, on and off. My best friend and I simultaneously played “What did the fox say” for eachother, while chatting on Facetime. We’re always late to the party, but we go really hard when we get there.

I looked at recipes on the internet then took a bath.

I toweled off and put on my pajamas and sat back down on the couch without so much as a glimmer of inspiration.

“Maybe I shouldn’t write from the couch.”

When I declared my intention to write for thirty days, it felt joyful and exciting. Like it would be beautiful and rewarding and effortless:

It’s daring and challenging and I shiver with excitement when I think about the surge of energy awaiting me at the end of it.

“What an accomplishment.”

When it’s over, I will write a heartfelt victory blog that’s both funny and inspiring. My friends, real and electronic, will undertake thirty day challenges of their own. They will post hilarious videos, or give a stranger a hug, or call their moms, or bake a month’s worth of inventive, cookie recipes.

They will write and sing and live their passion.

And when they feel discouraged, or pressed for time, or turned off by their most recent embrace of an unwitting hug-ee, they will read number fourteen of my thirty for thirty for thirty blogs and recommit to their effort.

I never considered how hard it is to do anything, for thirty days straight.

Make it to yoga and eat enough vegetables and be patient with people in traffic. Respond mindfully to irritating situations and apologize immediately when you don’t. Drink plenty of water and get out in the sunshine and tell the people you love, you love them. Walk the dog and practice gratitude and don’t take any moment of this extraordinary life for granted.

Floss, at least once a day.

In my life, I’ve wanted to give up on everything I didn’t do perfectly, the first time.

And most of the time, I have.

Tonight, I’m reminded that everything I want to do, I can, even if I don’t do it, moment to moment.

In the next breath, the next opportunity, I can begin again.

So tomorrow, just maybe, I’ll write something beautiful and moving and well punctuated.

Like this:

Two years before I stepped on a yoga mat I had my first, major transformation. At a sushi restaurant, sitting across from my college boyfriend, staring suspiciously at an “Oyster shooter,” a plate of baked muscles and an array of raw fish.

“I don’t eat this stuff.”

I’ve been repeating the phrase since the menus arrived, but he appears impervious to the message.

It’s not going well.

My boyfriend, Rak, is Cambodian. He grew up in the United States because his parents fled a Genocide that ravaged their home country. A bloody, horrific event killed most of their family and friends. Rak’s older was born in the middle of a jungle in Indonesia, while they were all on the run.

Right now he’s unsympathetic to the idea that “I’ll die if I eat ‘this’.”

I love Rak more than I thought I could love anyone, and, at this point, I’m pretty sure we’re in it together for life. I contemplate the worst case scenario and figure everything will be easier if I give in to him, just this once. I’m certain that when, not if, I have a violently-ill-nearly-hospitalized-attract-the-attention-of-the-entire-restaurant-sick-in-bed-for-three-days reaction he’ll relax a little on the hard-line, I’ll go back to ordering from the kids menu, and all will be right in the universe.

Without another word, I swallow the oyster, and, in my next breath, scrape my teeth against the hot, mollusc shell.

Rak doesn’t so much look pleased as a little less annoyed.

I am nothing short of triumphant.

I pause for the nausea, seizures and foaming at the mouth to overshadow my moment of victory.

But minutes, even hours later, I’m totally fine.

That night marked the beginning of the end of 20 years of perceived limitations with food.

Much later, I learned that “how you do anything is how you do everything,” and, as it turns out, my perceived limitations didn’t begin, or end, with food.

I’ve said no and don’t and can’t, a lot in my life.

I’ve clung to narrow definitions and specific sets of rules and done my best to control the outcome, of everything. My tiny world always felt more manageable than the giant one I was avoiding. I stuck to the things I knew and the places I’d been and the hard stuff I was already good at.

And for many years, even after I started practicing yoga, the food thing was my only significant progress.

Then, one night in 2011, my beautiful, loving, inspiring friend Heather was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer, at 52, and I was tired of being afraid.

At first, small acts of bravery like being nice to everyone I encountered and saying “yes” to more invitations to hang out. Like trusting my instincts and taking more risks and then making the commitment to live, every day, with an intention to “make it happen.” Whatever “it” was.

Eventually, bigger and scarier accomplishments, like sharing my stories and writing this blog and finally leaving the country.

Like showing people who I am and telling people what I want and not letting old stories and even older behaviors, get in the way of going after it.

Like being brave, and bold, and without limitations.

Last summer, I landed at the airport in Siem Reap, Cambodia after three weeks of travel, and one, turbulent, sixty-minute flight in a vicious electrical storm. Cambodia is the number one place I wanted to visit, but knew I never would. I try to explain the emotional and spiritual significance of our arrival to Parker. What it means for me to have made it here, to this place I would never see on a trip I would never take on seventeen airplanes I couldn’t fly on.

But he’s been a yes-man, his whole life, and he can’t possibly understand.

Then, while we’re standing at the baggage claim, being oggled by a group of Korean kids with matching t-shirts who think I’m traveling with Justin Bieber, with an intention of practicality but an outcome of profundity, he says:

“That’s the thing about your whole life, Katie. You can’t do anything, until you do it”

It was the first of many experiences stirring a similar emotional reaction. It was my first recognition of my vulnerability to other people’s perceptions and opinions. It was my first realization that my private family crisis was a topic of public conversation. For the first time, home felt like a claustrophobic, unforgiving, small town.

At the local grocery store, women in our community dodge my mom. They duck into aisles and avoid eye contact. Maybe they want to give her privacy, or they don’t know what to say. Maybe they don’t want to look into her desperate, tired eyes without comfort, or a solution, to provide. Maybe they judge her. Or shun her. Whatever the intention, or motivation, the feeling is the same. It feels like judgement and isolation. Like failure as a mother. Like a vacuum of support when she needs it the most.

Friends and acquaintances, even our extended family, have ideas about where we all went wrong. We mostly come to know about them, second or third hand. Rumors and gossip swirl around us. Every time I leave my house ,I fear an unexpected encounter with someone I know. A surprise attack of exposure before I can get my armor on, my story straight, my smile right.

It is a painful period that leaves me increasingly guarded, and self-aware.

I learn to keep everything close to my chest. To spin a pretty good story about my normal, suburban life. When my best friend reads my college application essay about my high school home-life, she can’t believe her eyes. In my house, I feel frightened and restless. At school, I appear confident and collected. On my hardest days, I am funny and sarcastic. In moments of self-doubt and sadness, I showcase my easy-going personality and carefree laugh.

I keep a strong commitment to stay on my best behavior. My family needs me to be the perfect kid, everyone expects.

I make sure people only have good things to say, about me.

Many years later, I still hear tid-bits about myself and my peers in the hot spots of my home town. The entire world is connected by Facebook, but all of us who grew up here are linked by coffee driven conversations between our moms.

My reputation, and its reflection on my parents, is relevant to my decision-making, even now.

Thoughts of my fifteen-year-old self crept into every moment I considered quitting my job.

The night I pull the trigger on my resignation, I bump into a friend at a yoga class. A woman from my high school graduating class. She hugs me and asks how work is going. “Is it still overwhelming?”

I pause to create space, to stuff down the truth.

I dig into my teenage toolkit. I say something vague and non-committal, then do my best to change the subject, right away.

“Phew, that was a close one.”

Later, alone in my apartment, I relive the conversation with the integrity I should have brought to it the first time. The courage to answer honestly, without expectation of how she will respond. To set aside old hurt. To stand in my decision. To know it’s right.

The first person I tell is a friend who works the front desk at my yoga studio. She is sweet and open. I remember she told me she left a lucrative career in fashion to enhance her quality of life. I blurt out my news while frantically signing in for a noon class, standing in a khaki suit, wrinkled from my court appearance, earlier that morning.

She lights up with surprise and excitement. “I’m so happy for you.”

“Yes, I can do this.”

At first, I limit the scope of the announcement to the four walls of Zuda yoga. In every exchange, I am met with an abundance of affirmation. Soon, people initiate the conversation with me. “Hey, I heard that…” “Is it true you’re…?”

I marvel at their sincerity, support and positivity.

Fueled by the energy of my yoga community, I take it to the streets. My anxiety peaks while nervously reviewing the menu at a trendy midtown lunch spot, seated at an intimate two-person table, face-to-face with my family law mentor.

“This is worse than telling my dad.”

We’ve shared a few good-vibes text messages, but I remain skeptical, braced for the storm. Over the last six months, this man has dedicated countless hours to teaching me how to be a lawyer, run a law firm, interview clients and enhance my professional network. Hours he could have spent billing clients, or hanging out with his wife. He put his full faith in my ability, handed me the keys to a kingdom, and asked simply that I do my best to not screw it up.

“So.” He breaks the silence. “What’s going on with you?”

I breathe in an “oh shit” and bravely begin to explain myself.

With wisdom, compassion, and his trademark humor, he offers his unconditional support. He does little to question my maturity, or sanity. He does just enough to assure me that our relationship will endure, and the kingdom will survive.

When lunch is over, I’m ready to tell everyone I know.

My co-workers, my clients, my former classmates. People who never pictured me as a lawyer, and others who only know me as one.

One, bold, moment, at a time, I reveal my truth.

Where I expect skepticism and judgement, I experience validation and love. Where I fear rejection and dismissal, I feel embraced, and lifted up. Where I struggle to be witnessed, I feel seen and heard.

The emotional residue is so potent, my fifteen year old self feels it. She learns that people can’t offer support if you don’t tell them why, or how, you need it. She sees that people only know your story, if you choose to tell it. She discovers that when you engage in an act of personal bravery, you give people the opportunity to accept you, just the way you are.

It becomes clear that if you know what to listen for, there are beautiful expressions of love, in things people say.